BURIED UNDER THE SNOW.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 58, 9 March 1901, Page 1

BURIED UNDER THE SNOW.

TERRIBLE EXPERIENCES OF PAS' SENGER TRAINS.

In connection with the recent burial under snow of a train in Russia, the Odessa correspondent of the Daily Mail writes as follows, under date January 12th : Hundreds of passengers loft St. Petersbury, Moscow, Kieff, and a score of intermediate stations six days ago bound for Odessa, little dreaming that they were destined to spend their Russian Christmas isolated from the rest of the world for five whole days and nights, half-hungered and nearly frozen to death. Six days ago the first train, containing five hundred passongers, stuck in the snow a little to the north of Razdyelnaia. Little fear was felt but that the snowdrifts, though already twelve feet deep, would be quickly cleared away, and passengers made themselves as comfortable at the junction station as circumstances would permit. As twelve, eighteen, and thon twenty-four hours passed, three more trains drew up at Razdyelnaia. Then telegrams, some hopeful, some desperate, kept arriving from headquarters at Kieff, and eventually something resembling a panic seized the eighteen hundred Jhuddlod together 1 , shivering in the bitter cold at the station. To add to the horrors of the situation the station' food supply showed signs of giving out, and famine prices began to prevail. Passengers in vain demanded to know what measures were being taken by the authorities to rescue them. The stationmaster himself had to be dug out. Another twenty-four hours passed and two more trains arrived laden with terrorised passengers who had just finished a run of forty miles in sixteen hours.

STORMING THE BUFFET.

The now arrivals stormed the refresh-ment-room. Strong men fought with weak women, and children even, for the possession of a slice of stale bread. Such luxuries as ham, sausages and boiled eggs had disappeared since. Children wept for very hunger, and the condition of the women, who had tasted nothing for thirtysix hours, was appalling. Meantime gangs of men were battling with the snowdrifts, which were now in places thirty-five feet deep ; but where were the snow-ploughs snugly stowed away? Heaven only knew where; the authorities did not.

Two days more were spent in digging a plough out, but the snow already had the upper hand, and no snow-plough, no matter with how many locomotives, could make any headway. A sort of mobilisation of the soldiery at several barrack centres was determined upon. A regiment was dispatched from Kieff southward, and 8000 Fusiliers wore sent out from Odessa northward. The only hope lay in the shovel. - At last, on the third day of their imprisonment, it was found possible to despatch a couple of the trains further south.

MAD RUSH FOR SEATS. The joy of tho famished passengers knew no bounds. Two thousand of tho total of 5000 now huddled together at the junction boarded the two trains with a rush, in which the* weakest had to go to the wall. The trains started, proceeded for eighteen hours and stuck again. The engines were reversed; they covered three versts and, heavens 1 stuck again. A perfect pandemonium prevailed inside the carriages. Curses were levelled at the heads of the railway management; ladies fainted, children clung to their parents, and eyen strong peasants broke down and wept. *- The blizzard continued to rage with demoniacal fury, and within an hour the snow was up to the tops of the carriages. Three hours later, [from the engine to the guard’s van, the two trains were completely buried. The horrors of that night were indescribable.

Next morning a call was made for a volunteer to take a telegram to the nearest out-of-the-way station, six miles back. A peasant passenger volunteered. Women on then. 1 knees wished him God-speed. The gallant fellow > reached the station with several fingers completely frozen, and despatched his wires, one to the Minister, M. Khiloff, in St. Petersburg, and another to the Governor of Odessa, beseeching assistance and food, for the senders were almost frenzied with cold and hunger. The supply of firewood on the trains had given out, and not a drop of water remaining in the heating boiler.

DRIVEN TO DESPERATION. Driven to desperation, sixty passengers, with Count Kapnist among the number, determined to strike out on foot two days ago. - Better it was to risk death in the snow than spend another night among the horrors of the train, not the least of which was the human stench within from the mass of human beings huddled together in the compartments which they could not leave. Count Kapnist and forty others reached a point from -which it was possible to hire sledges, and arrived in Odessa, at night. How many had fallen by the way is unknown. Meanwhile Governor Schuvaloff had organised a train of sledges in Odessa, on which he despatched piles of provisions and clothes and a quantity of vodka. After herculean efforts these reached the besieged, - The helpless passengers were delirious with joy at their deliverance, many of them having had either arms or legs completely frozen.